Well Begun is?
by dialNforNinja
Summary: (Ficlet) On that Halloween night in 1981, Voldemort is a little more perceptive. And Lily thought her situation couldn't get any worse... Open to adoption/continuation, just leave a review or PM


Harry Potter: Well Begun is...?

"Not Harry, please, not Harry! Take me instead!"

"Stand aside, foolish girl."

"Please, not Harry!"

"Stand aside! ... Where is your wand, foolish girl?"

The pleading mother froze for just an instant, before falling dramatically to her knees and begging all the louder, but her enemy's suspicions had been roused. His dreaded wand rose to point at her, but rather than the expected curse of death - "Specialis revelio!"

She fell silent then, all too real tears of terror and regret drowning anew as despair at having her gambit exposed gripped her heart. The Dark Lord's reptilian eyes flicked over the shimmering strands of magic revealed in the sudden silence, broken only by the soft sniffles of a toddler who hasn't yet decided if he's upset enough to wail, and as they did those eyes widened from their cruel slant, genuine surprise at the depth and power of the trap that had been prepared for him striking a small but undeniable spark of admiration for the ingenuity of the trembling witch at his feet.

"Please, please, take me instead, spare Harry," Lily mouthed once more, all but broken.

His eyes narrowed in calculation. "Truly, you offer yourself, all that you are, in exchange for allowing your child to live?" he demanded, tipping her head up with his off hand to stare into her eyes. The prophesy may have foretold a child with the power to defeat him, but power and will were two different things, after all...

"Anything..." she whispered, the irresistible force of his mind looking into hers proving she meant it with every fiber of her being. Lily Potter had knowingly prepared to use her own soul to power a ritual of defense for her son, what lengths would she shy from compared to that?

"Accepted."

That one word nearly knocked her fully to the floor, not through any force of magic but from sheer shock. Voldemort spared a moment to relish the sheer chaos it threw her mind into, before dispelling a few key parts of the magic she'd so carefully wound herself and the infant in. "Your arm," her demanded, having disrupted enough for the whole delicate web to collapse and dissipate.

"My... arm?" A wholly new form of numbing horror swept through the redhead, as she broke eye contact at last to look down at the limb as if seeing it for the first time.

"Present your arm, child, and take my mark. I could make use of another _intelligent_ follower - I assure you, you will have little enough competition - and power was ever the true measure of purity. Or, is your child's life not truly worth anything after all?"

Gritting her teeth, Lily Potter rose, and thrust her left arm out, all but ripping back the sleeve. "For Harry, anything," she repeated with a grim resolve. James would have hated the idea, but James was already dead at this villain's hand, and her own best hope at ending the monster's reign of terror had been foiled. All that was left was to protect the precious son he'd given her, and she would do whatever it took. "_Anything._"

When that proud resolve turned to wincing, then a pained scream that unleashed matching wails from the infant that was his original objective this night as the blackest magics burned into her flesh like a brand of hellfire, Voldemort laughed. Oh, certainly there was another possible candidate to become his nemesis, but after this night he would be ready for such a trap, and that minor threat would be just as swiftly neutralized.

* * *

Notes: .oO(Did I really just write that?)

... say, do we know Lily's birthday? Tom was active (if not yet engaged in outright warfare) long enough that her parents could have encountered him three times themselves, and no one would even know about it due to the obliviator squads...

As with most of my shorts, this is open to adoption/adaptation by anyone who wants to pick it up, just leave a review or a PM telling me about your continuation so I can see it and share it with my friends.

Naturally, at some point "Half Done" would need to be used as a chapter heading, to complete the saying.


End file.
